You wanna worry about something? THIS is something to worry about!

Plankton, base of ocean food web, in big decline
Study finds 40 percent drop since 1950s, ties it to warming seas


by SETH BORENSTEIN

updated 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON — Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide.

They also are declining sharply.

Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The probable cause is global warming, which makes it hard for the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, researchers say.

The numbers are both staggering and disturbing, say the Canadian scientists who did the study and a top U.S. government scientist.

"It's concerning because phytoplankton is the basic currency for everything going on in the ocean," said Dalhousie University biology professor Boris Worm, a study co-author. "It's almost like a recession ... that has been going on for decades."


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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38451744/ns/us_news-environment/

This, people, has the potential to really F**k this world over.

As the oceans go, so go humans. :(

Perhaps I can head up the new fish food initiative for 2011? We can get a bunch of boats together, similar to what they are doing in the Gulf for the oil cleanup, but have everybody with a can of fish food pouring it over the side of the boat into the ocean.

WHO'S WITH ME!?!?!?

Just asking :shrug:

BTW, I know this is :sarcasm:

A vote for Plankton is a vote for Republicans

The Arbutus has a break in range from Vancouver Island to southwestern Oregon.

Your intelligence and wit are appreciated.

Plankton should be the Elite Overlords.

:spray: Well after all, it's "green". Isn't it.

Without plankton, we really can't sustain life on this planet.

We've always made fun of those "the end is near" idiots standing on corners in downtown cities, but damn...

K&R This is really important.

To some extent, together with plants.

Worrying. Very worrying.

We'll just have to take turns breathing. x(

about O2.

Specifically, the uppoer layers of the oceans warming. The warmer the surface is, the more energy it takes to mix those waters with the deeper ones (which are always colder). The main way plankton get new nutrients is by waters mixing up from below (those cold waters also contain nutrients). Without mixing, the nutrients are quickly used up and the life dies off. That is why water in the tropics is usually so clear- there is very little living in it (as opposed to on surfaces like rocks).

We are turning our oceans into deserts.

It's a complex system and yes, we may have waited too long. What's new?

The reason I ask is that when you talk to people about climate change some are unconvinced because global temperatures fluxuate naturally.

It seems to me that the aborption of CO2 into the ocean is a more permanent and easily documented event that defies other explanations.

But some are helped and some hurt. CO2 is complex. Heat is not


http://www.skepticalscience.com/Where-is-global-warming-going.html

but for some folks warming is hard to accept because it requires understanding how warming trends are catastrophic while CO2 levels and accidity in the Ocean is a constant and increasing.

Acidification is the direct result of rising CO2 and the consequent warming...how is that not understanding?

has something to contribute to it as well, from runoff on commercial farming.

There are folks who creat tiny art with them:



Matthias Burba

Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany

Antique microscope slide featuring arranged diatoms (60x)
http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/gallery/year/2009/51

But much more precious than diamonds or emeralds.

Thanks for adding to it.

people just generally do not care. The apathy for the growing effects of climate change and the biodiversity crisis just makes me mad.

They all say "Now is the time...if we don't...in the next 10 years...blah blah blah" It already seems like we've fucked the world up irreversibly.

After the humans are gone the Earth will repair the damage we have done, it may take a few thousand years or a million. The planet won't care and life will still flourish, just not the same kinds of life that are in the majority today.

Don't worry about the rich people dying off either. They have the resources to survive in underground bunkers or sealed environments like Biosphere 2. Unlike the poor and middle class throughout the world. Poor subsistence farmers will be the first to be wiped out.

At some point the world's military forces will be used to block migrants from affected regions.

What IS the earth to you? Just a rock? The oceans produce 65% of the planet's oxygen. They go, and possibly all life on earth goes with them as the atmosphere itself will, for the most part, burn off. If an earth that seems more like the surface of Mars seems acceptable and "just fine", well OK then. It's far from fine to me. If you are just some self hating misanthrope who can't wait to watch humanity suffer, then I guess that you must feel the same way about all other living creatures. You can bet that mankind will wipe most species off the surface of the planet before all 7 billion of us are gone. If your soul hasn't a scrap of compassion in it, then why bother posting on a Democratic discussion board? Someone who says "Don't worry about the earth, it will be just fine" is grossly misinformed at the very best, and both homicidal and suicidal at worst.

And he's right- the people in charge are wrecking the world, and will kill most of us off as they retreat into their safe havens.

You can bet that they care even less for the other creatures in the biosphere than they do their fellow man.

The earth will indeed shrug us off like a bad case of fleas, and lots of other species will die off too.

That is the cost of our inertia. We won't fix it, so logical consequences will.

But my post was factual. You know the history of mass extinction events on Earth, in the last big one 65 million years ago all life forms larger than a housecat were killed off (the dinosaurs). That is why most land animals are mammalian today and not lizard or dinosaur. The Earth was messed up for a long time, hundreds of thousands of years, some say a million or more. Sea life was almost wiped out as well. But out of that global catastrophe the mammals survived and were then free to populate the land and eventually dominate.

Global warming and our upcoming wars over the last few drops of oil, water, or whatever other thing we end up killing each other over will be devastating for us and thousands of other species. It will not, however, wipe out all life. Somewhere a pocket of life will continue, if only at the volcanic vents on the ocean floor and from that a new dominant form of life will emerge eventually.

perhaps unconsciously, but he is the first person i remember who found that bit funny.

Pull up a chair- the 3rd act is on, and the chances of survival for most of us are next to nil.

It will soon be time for the people to show the rich and the corporations who's in charge, who's taking over.

The bottom line is that Capitalism can bring only ruin and devastation. Capitalism is only possible when there are millions of the exploited for every rich a-hole. If we are to survive as a race we need to take the reins of power from the corrupt politicians and their wealthy masters. There are only two outcomes to the looming disaster. Either we kill Capitalism or it will kill us.

I just believe that people have become too complacent to actually assert their power, even if it's a question of survival.

In order to turn things around, people would have to cooperate and start fresh. I've advocated for such, but the real interest is tepid.

Mind you, more and more people are getting the point, but more and more people are also drinking the kool-aid.

It's creating an interesting push/hold back response. I'm waiting to see which one wins, since hold back only has to hold until tipping point, and we all die.

and part of the cycle we are seeing.

Sure, life will evolve and adapt to a warmer world... but dominant species might not survive this.

OF course disclaimer needed, this is the WORST CASE SCENARIO... though in the long run, humans will go extinct, deal with it. So had 99% of all life that has ever existed on this world.

a quote from the 1973 movie Soylent Green.....

only other people left to eat soon ??

1973...thankfully I'm old and won't see all the oceans die.

Let's just eat rich people, OK? Remember the bumper sticker: End World Hunger. Eat the Rich.

PEEOPLE!!!!!

People are no longer fit for human consumption.

has been recalled.

What are we doing to those beautiful and very vital creatures?

BP has created a huge dead zone.

now the GOM is only good for drilling.

I have no idea why people want to live along the coast anymore. I see the writing on the wall.

As does he:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson.html

she said, gasping for air. I don't know if it's due to the proliferation of news on the internet, or what, but it seems to me that this is accelerating at a frightening rate, like a runaway freight train going down a mountain. Of course that analogy might be obsolete soon if blowing up the mountains for coal continues at its' present rate. We are sooooo screwn!

worst enemy.

Hail Lord Clostridium tetani, Hail Lord Clostridium botulinum.

Seriously, we are totally fucked. We deserve it. All the rest of aerobic life on earth, however, does not. :(

Nature will get her life back.

read the new book Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer. It'll scare the shit outta ya! Just wait until you read about "positive" feedback loops and the Methane that will escape from the melting ice caps...



:(



K&R

the collapse is unfolding

Agent Smith: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."

Jeremy Jackson, on how we wreaked the oceans
TED presentation, stone cold scary

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson.html

I'm sending this video to many.

I guess I knew all of this on some level. Greedy evil people/corporations are killing the Earth. I'm very glad I'm old.

I just had Fish & Chips the other day w/ the malted vinegar. And the fish was very puny and not thick and filling like it used to be.

I'm sad and :puke:

Humans suck.

Thanks for posting.

I think of it every time I read something about how we (humans) are destroying the planet.

sadly.

Save Lots Of Plankton.

I thought we were gonna save them by killing off all the whales that are eating them.

But I was already worried that my dog might be a werewolf and that my toes could all explode.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Your-Dog-Might-Werewolf-Your-Toes-Could-All-Explode-David-Greenberg-M-D-Paperback-1992-/341648721810

That's the part that gives me hope.

back before the ice ages. My impression is that the oceans had plenty of life in them, and that the Earth had an adequate supply of oxygen.

Don't get me wrong. This is an extremely disturbing trend, and I believe global warming is an impending cataclysm for humanity.

However, I have a lot of questions before I embrace the conclusions of a single, loudly-hyped study. For instance: If phytoplankton produce half of the world's oxygen, and phytoplankton have dropped 40% since 1950, does that mean we are breathing 20% less oxygen than they were 60 years ago? If not 20%, has there been a significant drop? That would be pretty easy to verify, I think.

Anybody have any insight into this?

More slowly, since it is a huge pool (20% of the atmosphere). Plankton produce half the O2 supply, but that supply rate is tiny compared to the overall pool size.

IMHO, this study needs to be shouted from the rooftops. If I were to tell you that 1/2 of the world's plants (in terms of activity, not biomass) had experienced a 40% drop in productivity over the past 50 years, would that not bother you? Because that is what we are talking about here.

This isn't the only study saying this. Just the best one on a global scale.



http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/global-warming-mapsgraphs-2/

in deep sea sediments.

Atmospheric oxygen levels will not drop dramatically as most of the organic matter in the Earth's crust is bound in low concentrations in sedimentary rocks and will not be oxidized.

The real danger is to pelagic fisheries and commercial exploited fish species that spend their early life stages in the open ocean.

Add this to ocean acidification from anthropogenic CO2

and they are fucked.

and so are we

global warming is real, it is caused by human and has global deleterious effects.

the end

No, not the wrong thread.

Humans have been destroying this planet for eons. All for greed for themselves.

The human race is like a bad virus that has taken over a once beautiful world.


Good to be rid of them.

Earth was really dying

Cried so much his face was wet

Then I knew he was not lying

K&R.

First, it's Obama's fault that there is a decline in phytoplankton.

Second, since phytoplankton are democrats, it doesn't matter if they die. And they're probably gay anyway.

Third, this sounds an awful lot like science. If god wants phtytoplankton to die, so be it. It's god's plan, and, in fact, the death of phytoplankton is mentioned implicitly in revelations as a sign of the end times and a requirement for the rapture.

Fourth. Thanks. I wasn't worried enough.

I've said it before. We are well and truly screwed. Sure, we can fight back in the voting booth, but, for the most part, we are headed pretty quickly down the drain, and the party of no and their moronic followers are right there with the plungers to make it happen faster. Let's see what these morons think about global warming when they start heading north in a few decades for access to water.

But I will have to ask how you knew this, and then track you down.

The gay agenda will not be stopped, even without an Earth. We will finish up business on Pluto if we have to.

Or some other real planet not subject to downgrading.